Little Sister

You are a mile a minute tonight
and the blood is blooming
into the milk of your nose
You get this way when you drink
and you curse in your parents’ language
and kick your high heels noisily into the hallway
angry with Ambien and cheap
mix-ins

Nong Sao, sit in my window
and breathe a cigarette with me,
watching the lightning
crash behind the guard of this city
Hold it in your raccoon eyes

It has been three months
since the rains that brought me your name
and we laughed as the motorcycles fiascoed
in the wet streets,
children mixing power with tapwater in their palms
streaking it down our cheekbones

That night, a man told you he loved you
in the drunk night on Walking Street
and I knocked him in the ear
and fucked you while your sister slept

There are 44 hundred temples
between Hua Mak and the Burmese line
and I’m afraid that there isn’t enough oil
to make this a sacrament, Nong Sao

In a dream, I took you
to the underpasses out by Makkasan
to the tinroof ghettos where the railway officers
let the old cars rot and braid vines
and explained that this is how it goes
We eat khao soy together
and then we don’t